Counterclockwise in Europe
I am writing this post from Prague where, in three days of walking the streets of four different districts, I have yet to see a morbidly obese person. The closest I came was yesterday, at a sidewalk café on a street leading to Prague Castle, when a rather chunky woman sat down at the table next to us. She was – I am delighted to tell you – French, thus disproving the French Women Don’t Get Fat thing. But aside from her, no one. It was the same thing in Vienna, where I was last week.
I will also say that it is almost impossible to get a skim milk cappuccino anywhere over here. And the stores – my favorite thing to do in a foreign country is to go grocery shopping – don’t offer shelves of “fat-free” this or “low carb” that. The folks over here in the Old World appear not to fetishize their food like we New Worlders do. The eat, and they enjoy it. They eat and they don’t get fat like we do.
Maybe – the female diner I saw yesterday notwithstanding – you believe in the “French Paradox”: The French eat rich foods and pastries and don’t get fat because they drink red wine. Fine. But what about the Czechs who drink beer. A lot. Huge steins (liters!) of Pilsner Urquell. What about the Austrians who wash down fried pork cutlets (aka schnitzel) and potatoes with tall glasses of Gosser.
Here’s my take on their “secret.”
They eat a big lunch, a multi-course, sit-down, enjoy-yourself lunch. (Dinner is small, almost an after thought.)
They walk.
They watch a lot less TV than we do.
And did I mention they walk?
We (and by we I mean I) are obsessed with eating low fat and low glycemic index and with cutting calories and sweating at the gym. And we’re getting fatter and fatter. Over here, they eat all the stuff we shun, and they look fit. The old folks walk hills and manage cobblestone streets. Walk being the operative word.
6 comments
I can’t tell you how happy it makes me that Europeans eat potatoes. I do think it is the walking. And the not being tied to technology 24/7.
I do think it has something to do with being (relatively) unplugged.
Lauren,
Loved this piece! We lived in Europe from 2003-2010 (5 years in Switzerland, 2 in UK). In Switzerland they eat lots of sausages and pommes frites (French fries). In our 5 years there I saw only ONE obese person and she turned out to be an Australian tourist. You are right about the walking. Also right about no low-fat, etc foods. And we didn’t have ANY fast food places within 10 miles of where we lived, so we never, ever ate it. Gyms aren’t nearly as popular there as they are here. Europeans do things in moderation (having a beer at lunch is common, but it’s just one and then rarely anymore in the evening) and walk to get places. They also don’t shop for sport– the shop if they actually NEED something– I found this wonderful.
I so envy you your 7 years in Europe. The lack of vending machines (that always contain pure junk) was also startling to me too.
After many years of observation I am convinced that what the New World suffers from is chronic high cortisol (read stress hormone). The biochemistry/physiology supports this. We are worried, stressed, don’t sleep, consume mass quantities of caffeine, are in the fight or flight mode all day every day (watch a persons reaction to their cell phone ringing – dare you not to answer). End result = all the food goes into STORAGE. Plus no relaxation, contentment, walking, satisfying relationships, not enough time or money. Prescription for disease. Oh, did I say anything about OCD and guilt about everything that passes our lips? Chill, love, play, regret in some other lifetime.
I agree completely about the stress/ cortisol explanation. So the question is, given the beautiful, wealthy country (for many of us) we live in, why have we chosen lifestyles so full of chronic stress? Our feitishizing of healthy food is, in itself, stressful.
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